Night Lights

by Melissa Glisan

  Rizal had held his breath through the recitation almost afraid to speak. If only the old man knew. “What of the mother, what did she have to say?"

  "Phoebe?” the sad look on Hooker's face spoke volumes, “she was never right after the time she spent in the cemetery. All she did was pick flowers and sing whatever song captured her fancy. Thawley tried doctors and priests, he even had two more daughters with Phoebe, but nothing seemed to wake her mind from wherever it went. Then one day she simply vanished."

  "What do you mean ‘vanished'?” Margaret chose that moment to step into the doorway of the cabin. Her hair was down in a single braid that hung over her shoulder, lying along the trail of flowers meeting her waist.

  "I mean that the woman disappeared as if she had never stepped foot in the house. Gone without a trace. Since then, Thawley shepherded this daughter as if she were a thing to fear. He wouldn't allow her to leave the grounds, make friends or to even find a husband.” Hooker turned and saw Margaret standing in the doorway, looking flustered in her new dress. The sight of her in the creamy pina silk only made Rizal hunger to touch her more.

  "Why was she not allowed to wed?” He tried to keep the words even, uncaring, but failed.

  Hooker slanted him a sharp knowing glance, “Because he feared her to be the get of the vampire. So he sent her here to lure one of her own “kind” into the open. That or to be killed."

  With a disgusted sound, Rizal pushed away from the railing and walked to meet the blushing beauty who couldn't seem to make up her mind if she should disappear back in the cabin or join them at the bow.

  Chapter Five

  Margaret couldn't help but blush as Rizal walked towards her. The frank admiration and hunger in his eyes made her more than tongue-tied. Her blood danced in her veins but she didn't know what to do in this situation. He seemed to understand and simply proffered his arm in a gentlemanly fashion.

  He shushed away her newest attempt at thanks for the dress and guided her to Sir Joseph at the bow of the vessel under the cover of a muslin canopy. They spent the late afternoon watching the shoreline slip away as their boat eased between other crafts. For a moment, Margaret longed for her small desk so she could take notes on the experience. But after awhile she relaxed, knowing full well that this day would be etched in her mind forever.

  As the day wore on, Rizal told her the history of his homeland. Cagayan wasn't the original name, that the people still called it Tana Mapun. The confusion led to an amusing tale of how the Spanish, who spoke no Pullem, and the natives, who spoke no Tagalog or Spanish, renamed everything so very wrong. Margaret found herself fascinated at every turn. The land didn't sound like the backwards heathen place the scant travelogues she had unearthed painted. There was a rich history, a proud culture loyal to the Muslim Sulu Sultanate, and as for heathen, while the Christian church didn't agree with the Muslim people they most assuredly had an equally ancient and legitimate faith.

  "Things never do turn out to be what they seem, do they Rizal?” she asked, staring into the darkening horizon. The sun was setting behind them, but she preferred to look where they were going, not where they had been.

  "What do you mean, Miss Thawley?” He had insisted she use his first name, but steadfastly refused to address her by hers.

  "I mean to say that I was led to believe that this would be a perilous journey to a place rife with disease and villainous people, not a trip through what is looking to be more and more like the Garden of Eden.” As the sun dipped towards the horizon, the air began to cool considerably. Amazingly enough, the thin material of the dress seemed to hold the heat of her skin keeping her warm, where not an hour before it was airy enough that she stayed cool.

  "Ah,” he breathed against the shell of her ear, moving closer, almost crowding her against the rail. “Just as your presence on this trip is not what it seems, yes?"

  Margaret felt her racing heart stutter to a wrenching halt and fall to her shoes. Could the two men really know the truth of her ruination?

  "What do you mean?” Her voice was stiff as she tried to ease into discovering what Rizal did or didn't know.

  "How does a beautiful,” his lips grazed the top of her ear, “young,” she felt the tips of his fingers drag along the side of her ribs to her waist, “woman, such as yourself end up the scribe for an academic expedition.” Leaning so close that she could feel the heat of his body burn along her back, he whispered, “You are not a scholar."

  "No,” she admitted, feeling slightly miserable inside even as her body responded to his warmth. Never had she felt so alive. But the thought of admitting the truth of why she was on the trip to the darkly handsome male at her back made her feel sick. Would he understand or be disgusted at her fickle heart? She found that she desperately wanted to keep his attentions, not push him away.

  "You are not Hooker's daughter.” His hand settled heavily at the juncture of her waist and pulled her up against his hip. Shivering, she felt the length of his body, from knee to chest, press along her side. “And you are not wed to any member of his team.” Rizal wasn't much taller than she, but the rock-solid feel of his body made her feel small, soft, and protected. When his head dipped slightly, allowing him to drop a light kiss to the side of her neck, she couldn't repress her body's instinctive reaction.

  "In fact,” his hip shifted, digging into her softness, “you seem to be the only other member on this survey, when Hooker normally travels with a team of no less than a dozen.” Shivering with need, her head tilted, arching into his mouth. Her world narrowed to the sensual hum of his voice, the fleeting pressure of his fingers, and the need to feel more. A low chuckle stirring the hair at the nape of her neck was his only response.

  "Why then, Miss Thawley, are you really here? Or don't you even know?” The sky purpled, as if a switch had been thrown, night began falling as fast as she seemed to be doing at his feet.

  "I ... I can't say,” she admitted miserably. “You would be disgusted at what I have done and I couldn't bear it."

  Dark laughter floated on the night wind as he backed away, leaving her feeling cool and bereft. “I do not believe that you could have done anything so bad. But think on this if you will, this trip of Hooker's has been planned for many months, your place in it included."

  The fast pace of her heart shifted from arousal to fright. What did Rizal mean? It had only been a matter of weeks since her haphazard plan to run away and elope had been discovered. Her father's rage had been real, his banishment to the expedition no less so. In fact, he had called it a stroke of ‘divine providence’ that his old friend had immediate need of help. How then could Sir Joseph have known of her participation for months?

  Clutching her elbows, Margaret stood watching the dark current flowing towards the boat. All the night needed was a pair of burning torches in the distance and she could be locked in her nightmare. The thought was not reassuring, but it did serve to focus her thoughts and memories on things other than the feelings Rizal raised in her flesh.

  Rupert had been at the house at her father's insistence, helping the older man finish the latest of his books. They were horrible things, her father's books. As a child, she had been so proud of her father, nothing was so important in the world as his books. As a budding young woman, she had asked numerous times to read one of his works, only to be told she was too young.

  After her sister Theodora wed, she had been shopping for a present for the newlywed couple when she happened across a used copy of what the shopkeeper assured her was her father's greatest work to date, a thick volume on witches and werewolves. Reading the book had made her sick to her stomach. So much anger and hate poured off of the pages, but she couldn't deny his scholarly attention to details. It hurt more that she never knew that her father spoke so many languages, had traveled to so many places as was reflected in the pages she turned. He truly believed that such evil creatures existed and that man was still locked in battle with them to save his immortal soul.

  Here we st
and, at the cusp of a new century and our brightest minds are still locked in the superstitions of the past, she thought as the stars sparkled to life in the deepening sky. Oh, she knew she was in the minority when it came to ghosts, vampires, and ghouls. She didn't believe in the horrid stories, but considered it possible that there was a kernel of truth at the center of each. Still, reading the tales had raised gooseflesh. Rubbing her arms at the memory, she turned and made for the center of the craft where everyone was grouping together for a late meal.

  Fear had nothing to do with belief. Margaret closed her eyes against the prickle of tears. She was beginning to fear for her life, and to suspect that her father's obsession with bogeymen had more to do with her being in the Philippines than any thwarted love affair. Even Rupert's attention seemed contrived in retrospect. Perhaps her maid had been correct in thinking that Rupert had intentions on something other than marriage. Perhaps he had designs on the trip she had been banished to.

  Looking at the men arranged in a loose circle around an open stone grate built on the deck, she wondered who she could trust. The captain and his men didn't know her, from what she could tell, they didn't even speak her language, so they couldn't really be counted on. Sir Joseph hadn't said anything about her arrival, but if he knew she was coming aboard the expedition, he surely knew the reason, given his close relationship with her father. Or did he? Could he know differently?

  Is that why Rizal sought her out, to make her question everything? As for Rizal, she was completely lost. She might be inexperienced with men and their needs, but not even in the romances she snuck into the house did the hero put himself at risk for the heroine until after a lengthy courtship. Could she trust him, or was he using her uncertainty to compromise her?

  Primly, she sank onto a cushion one of the deck hands indicated and accepted the bowl of rice and cooked fish with a distracted smile of thanks. Watching the others dig in lustily, she began to eat. Halfway to her lips, a forkful of the savory meal paused as she stared in shock. Sir Joseph had taken a small green lime from his pocket and used a knife almost long enough to be a machete to cut the fruit, sprinkling a few drops on the dish. The way he studied the food afterwards made ice run in torrents down her spine.

  In the folder provided to her by the Society was a section she would never forget. Skertchley spoke at length about the powers of lime juice to repel the native Philippine vampires, the Berbalangs. One especially stomach-knotting section detailed how the demons would disguise human flesh as fish, and that the application of the juice from a lime would reveal the lie.

  Sir Joseph believed in the Berbalangs. He more than believed, he accepted their existence and used the local lore the Society had written so condescendingly about to keep himself safe.

  Even more telling, he never offered the protection of his knowledge to her. She was no better than bait. Margaret had a very bad feeling about her anticipated role on this adventure.

  Chapter Six

  Morning came with the soft, even pattering of rain. The sound inside the tin-roofed cabin was deafening. Margaret couldn't believe that the sound of the storm never awoke her from her confused welter of dreams. Awake, the constant hammering was enough to drive her insane inside the hot muggy space.

  Her dreams worried her. In the beginning, she had been as yesterday, standing on the boat watching black water flow towards her. Then suddenly she had been a child again, swimming against the current chasing her long dead mother towards twin pinpoints of fire. Instead of the inevitable drowning, she was lifted from the rushing water by strong arms, arms belonging to a man whose features were lost in the darkness but for his eyes, two glowing flame red orbs, staring down into her own with an intensity that should have frightened her. But even in her dreams, she felt no fear there was ... love. That was the emotion, Margaret decided, tenderness.

  Hungrily, her dream-self had closed her eyes and the tone and temperature changed, turned languorous as the wet clothes vanished and were replaced with hot male skin rubbing against her own. That part hadn't been too hard to figure out. After listening to all the naughty stories from her two younger sisters about the sexual acts they shared with their husbands, her body was more than happy to begin indulging in the same. And judging by the reaction she had to Rizal Malihim, her female parts were clamoring for the real thing over the imagined.

  But why Rizal? Of all the good-looking, youthful men of her own country that had asked for a chance to win her hand, not a one made her body burn in the night at the memory of his voice as did Rizal. Yes, he was good-looking in a very sensual way with his cat-tilted midnight eyes, soft lips, and dusky golden skin. His body was strong and graceful. He moved with an economy of motion that projected both stealth and power. Perhaps she was more attracted to him for being different, exotic, and completely alien to her world.

  Her world, what a lark! Years of rigidly enforced propriety, parentally inflicted isolation and spinsterhood for what? To be stuffed onto a ship bound for Malay by a retired occult researcher, to meet up with a botanist turned vampire hunter and face God only knows what in the jungles of an American-owned, Muslim-ruled archipelago in the Sulu Sea?

  Last night, sitting near the cooking fire, Margaret had quietly resolved to stop praying for safe travels and a fast boat home, choosing instead to focus on surviving whatever was waiting for her at the end of this journey. This morning she renewed that vow with a small addition, she intended to never return to her father's house. Looking at Rizal's relaxed profile as he watched the rain strike the deck and splash into the air, she remembered his passion for finding freedom, true freedom for his island and people. Perhaps he would understand what she had done...

  Grumbling, Sir Joseph levered himself from his cot and grabbed a leathery looking smock from a peg on the wall. “We should be approaching Cagayan, I best speak with the captain,” he muttered tenting the coverall over his bald head as he dashed out into the weather.

  "He really shouldn't run,” Rizal noted lazily, watching the older man slip and slide across the wet planking. “He's got the wrong shoes for it.” There was more than a small dose of mischievous humor in his voice and Margaret found herself stifling laughter.

  "I thought about what you said last night.” She started and winced at the sudden tension in the air. When was she going to learn how to hold a proper conversation? “You are right. There truly is no need for me to be on this trip with Sir Joseph. I can't speak any language but English, I've no great grasp on math or science and my knowledge about history and foreign places is limited to books I've read."

  Taking a deep breath, she looked up and found his dark eyes watching her intently. “I know what I am supposed to have done to have been sent here, can you tell me differently?"

  "To know that, babae, I would have to know what you were to have done."

  Margaret fell to sudden embarrassed silence. How to admit her foolish shame? She felt heat burn along her cheeks.

  "Come now, it cannot be as bad as that."

  She could feel his amusement in the small room. Pulling the cloth curtain open farther, she tried to meet his eyes but couldn't. “I had an ... affair.” The words sounded lame coming out of her mouth.

  His reaction was unexpected. Soft laughter echoed in the cabin. Chancing a glance upwards, Margaret went from wanting to sink through the floor in embarrassment to having a sudden urge to hit him over the head. “I don't see how that was funny!"

  The laughter in his eyes extinguished. With incredible speed he rolled off his cot, cleared the top of Sir Joseph's, and landed roughly on top of her, pushing her back against the lumpy pillow. Errantly, he pulled the curtain closed, painting the alcove in shadows. The thunderous sound of rain faded into nothingness as he captured her hands from pushing against his chest, placing them above her head.

  "So, sinta, you have had an affair with a man?"

  Margaret held very still as he pushed himself between her thighs. Foolishly, she had tossed an old chemise and thin skirt over h
er shift, wanting to avoid the heat or abusing her new dress with repeated wear. She felt too well the thickness of his erection as it rubbed against her cleft. His weight pushed her breasts against his chest. Open-mouthed in shock, she watched as his eyes drifted closed in appreciation of her body.

  Margaret choked, she should be screaming for help, her heart should have been galloping with fear, but no, she felt the way her body heated, softened in anticipation of his rough caress. The tempo of her heart wasn't speeding in panic but thrumming deep and low, vibrant with want. She wanted this. “Yes,” she croaked.

  "Then you have laid like this with a man?” He nipped the skin at the side of her jaw, and she quivered.

  "No,” she admitted.

  A knowing smile flitted across his face. “Of course, then he has touched you like this?” Slowly he slid the backs of his fingers from the column of her neck over the swell of her breast and lower, across the edge of her hip to the top of her thigh.

  Her breath hitched as his fingers plucked at the thin fabric, hiking it above her knee. Panting beneath him, eyes wide in fear misted with want, she felt the heat of his fingers as his hand slid between them towards the delta of her thighs. Whimpering, she bit her lower lip. Locked in uncertainty, her body felt alert yet slumberous, it ached for the feel of his hands, but did she dare lay there and allow him to touch her body so intimately?

  A single slim digit brushed again and again at the slick skin of her slit, and reflexively she parted her legs further. When his finger swirled around the aching nub of her clit, she gasped and arched allowing his finger to slide deep inside.

  "Ah, there, I can feel the truth, mahalin, it is wrapped around my finger. You've lain with no man."

  "N-no, I ha-haven't,” she managed to stammer as his finger turned and caressed a spot inside that she never dreamed existed. Heat flared as bright as a lightning strike through her body, and her bones burned with want. When he removed his hand, she cried out, wanting, no needing more. But he only smiled, a sad twisting of his lips as he tasted the fingers that had plumbed her depths before dropping his lips to hers to hush her cries.